East Jackson fell to Franklin County 62-54 in its region opener Friday, and coach David Akin said the preparation leading into the game factored into the loss.
“I hope something good will come out of this loss,” Akin said. “Sometimes when you fall flat on your face, you are that much more open to being coached. Our coaches and players were not ready for this game.”
Akin took the blame for that.
“I did a poor job of preparing our program to compete against a hard-nosed and solid executing Franklin County team,” he said. “I have got to do a better job of preparing our team for region competition. I sometimes do a poor job of balancing basketball and the operational side of this job. I am afraid I allowed the basketball operational side of this job to get to the forefront, instead of focusing on basketball this time of the year.”
Tay Howard led East Jackson with 18 points and eight boards. Makayl Rakestraw contributed 12 points and six rebounds.

Apalachee senior defensive back/running back AJ Millbrooks was named the Two-Way Player of the Year for GHSA Region 8-AAAAAA. The team was announced last week.
Millbrooks was a strong presence in all phases for the Wildcats, who went 3-7 in their first season under Tony Lotti and just missed out on the state playoffs. Millbrooks ran for 766 yards on 118 carries (6.5 yards per carry) and scored six touchdowns.
He added 15 receptions for 270 yards a pair of scores on the receiving end. On defense, he finished with 48 tackles, six pass break-ups and a forced fumble. He also handled the punting duties, averaging 31 yards a kick.
Millbrooks was joined by five Apalachee teammates on the all-region team. Senior Josh Agbenou (the 2018 Mainstreet Newspapers Defensive Player of the Year) was a first-team selection at linebacker. Agbenou recorded 133 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, a pair of sacks and four forced fumbles. Fellow senior linebacker Alex Stephenson (120 tackles, two sacks), senior defensive end Peyton Ferro and junior defensive back Jared Clark were also first-team selections on defense, while junior offensive lineman Nate Hodnett was also selected.
Also locally, Winder-Barrow (2-8) landed seven players on the first team. Senior defensive end Logan Cash, who will sign with Clemson next week and enroll there next month, was a first-team selection on the defensive line.
Cash finished with 68 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, seven sacks and a pair of recovered fumbles despite missing some time due to an ankle injury.
He was joined by fellow senior defensive lineman Deondre Millwood, junior linebacker Nate Allen and senior safety Jamar Mack on the first-team defense.
Allen was a strong presence for the Bulldoggs this year, registering 95 tackles with a pair of sacks. Mack, who had primarily been a running back entering this season, became a two-way starter and thrived in the secondary, finishing the season with 86 tackles and a touchdown off an interception.
Senior offensive linemen Joey Klemm and James Freeman and junior wide receiver Brett Landis were also all-region selections.
Winder-Barrow had three honorable mentions: sophomore defensive end Jacob Merrifield, senior linebacker Aaron Bagley and senior defensive back Ryan Mayard. Apalachee had two honorable mentions: sophomore offensive lineman Chase Hunter and senior defensive end Kelvin Dwamena.
Habersham Central senior quarterback Tre Luttrell was named the region’s Player of the Year. Dacula senior running back Trenton Jones was Offensive Player of the Year, Lanier senior linebacker Kameron Brown was Defensive Player of the Year, and Dacula defensive back/wide receiver Jalen Perry was Athlete of the Year.

Commerce girls’ basketball coach Brad Puckett was plenty proud of his team for pulling out a close win over an in-county rival. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a teachable moment in practice.
The Tigers (5-1) held on to beat Jackson County 44-40 Tuesday on the road, despite missing seven fourth-quarter free throw attempts.
“What we’re going to do all practice tomorrow, we’re going to shoot free throws,” Puckett said, “but I’m just really proud of how this group is starting to come together.”
Commerce held a 14-point lead over the Class AAA Panthers after three quarters before Jackson County put together a rally.
“We’ve kind of got a motto this year — not looking at the scoreboard,” Puckett said. “Just do your job in the moment as hard as you can and don’t worry about what the scoreboard says. We got caught scoreboard watching a little bit. I think we got a little nervous playing on the road … but anytime you get rattled and persevere and find a way to win, we’re thrilled with that. We hit some big shots late and finally hit some free throws late.”
Bryanna Sanders paced Commerce with 14 points, and Jeanece Smith added 12 points. Jackson County’s Carson Anderson countered with 17 points, including five 3-pointers.
The Tigers built up a 32-18 lead at the end of three quarters, which enabled them to weather Jackson County’s furious fourth quarter rally.
Commerce outscored the Panthers 11-2 in the third period, with the key stretch coming in the last 4:45 when Sanders drained a 3-pointer, her fourth of the night, and Autumn Mathis scored three consecutive baskets to give the Tigers a 32-16 lead. Commerce didn’t allow a point in the quarter until the waning moments when Anderson hit two free throws.
Puckett credited his team’s press for giving it that third-quarter cushion.
“Commerce has never pressed before,” he said. “This is the first year. It’s what I’ve kind of always known, and I feel like we have the depth this year. The girls are in the physical condition to do it. And we’re still not perfect at it, but we’re getting better with it every single game.”
But Jackson County drained five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to help it cut Commerce’s lead to single-digits. Sydney Haynes also helped out at the free throw line, draining three attempts with 2:20 left to cut Commerce’s lead to 37-32.
“They’re a really, really good shooting team and we knew that coming in, and I knew they weren’t going to stay cold all night long,” Puckett said.
The Tigers, however, scored the next four points to build a 41-32 lead in the final minute. A layup from Jackson County’s Naomi Sims cut the lead 42-37 with a basket with eight seconds left. But Sanders converted two free throws with five seconds left to put the game out of reach. Anderson hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the game’s final points.
“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” Puckett said of the win and the season overall. “I can’t ask any more of these kids. They’re working hard … They do everything I ask them to do. I can’t ask any more of them — other than we have to get on the free-throw line tomorrow at practice.”
Commerce moves on to face Towns County Friday (7 p.m.).

When Blake Hooper pinned his opponent in 25 seconds to start the night Tuesday, it was obvious the Madison County wrestling team was about to begin a dominant night on the mat against region rival Oconee County.[Full Story »]

After dropping its first game of the season to Galloway last Tuesday, the Commerce Tiger girls’ basketball team proved it can handle the adversity that a loss can carry.
The Tigers took their frustration of the loss out on Social Circle last Friday and garnered their fourth victory of the year with a 48-36 win on the road. It is the second time the Tigers have beaten Social Circle this season.
Jeanece Smith and Ragan Allen led the way for Commerce with 10 points apiece. The duo also ended up with double-digit rebounds. Maggie Mullis and Bryanna Sanders added eight and seven points, respectively.
“I was so proud of our kids bouncing back to get a tough road win Friday night,” head coach Brad Puckett said. “The game was very physical and Social (Circle) brought a lot of loud fans to try and distract our players."
For the rest of this story, see the Dec. 12 edition of The Jackson Herald.

The Jackson County girls’ basketball team was hit with three-straight losses last week, including two region play.
The team’s most recent set back came Saturday in non-region action as the team fell to North Oconee 52-39.
Carson Anderson led Jackson County with 12 points, but the Panthers struggled in the third quarter to score “and that was the difference in the game,” according to coach Monty McClure.
The previous evening, Jackson County fell to Monroe Area 48-41 in Region 8-AAA action. The team was paced by Sydney Hayes with 12 points.
McClure said turnovers were the difference in the game.
“Monroe did a good job of pressuring us and we struggled to handle it,” McClure said.

Jackson County didn’t record a region win during the week, but didn’t come up empty handed either.
The Panthers closed last week with a 57-54 non-region victory over North Oconee Saturday to improve to 5-3.
Kalib Clinton recorded another double-double with 24 points and 14 boards, while Cam Shaw added 18 points. The team was coming off region losses to Hart County (last Tuesday) and Monroe Area (Friday)
“It was great to bounce back and get a win to close out a tough week,” coach Chuck Butler said. “Hart and Monroe presented a lot of challenges for us and then we had North Oconee coming in who plays differently but can really shoot the basketball. We really controlled the game from the tip in my opinion.”
Jackson County led by 16 at the half before North Oconee cut into the lead with its 3-point shooting in the second half.
For the rest of this story, see the Dec. 12 edition of The Jackson Herald.

With his team down 41-30 early in the third quarter and possibly in trouble, Jefferson coach Kevin Morris thought about burning a time out. But he opted to see how his team would respond to a little adversity and let his players play on.
He’s glad he did.
Jefferson (4-3) rallied for a 79-69 win over visiting Apalachee Friday, taking down a non-region foe from Class AAAAAA for its second straight win.
“I thought about calling time out there, but I just wanted to see what they’d do,” Morris said. “They really handled it well, and just continued to fight and continued to battle and just continued to put pressure on them.”
Behind a huge second half, Jacob Radaker led Jefferson with a season-high 28 points. Donsha Gaither finished with 16 points, with 11 of them coming from the free throw line.
Jefferson trailed for most all of the first half and went into halftime down 33-28. Morris, who coached Apalachee for 15 seasons before taking over at Jefferson last year, said he felt his team was eventually able to wear down the Wildcats in the second half with its pressure.
“Donsha (Gaither) asked at half time ‘do you think we need to stay in the press?’ I said ‘heck, yeah, we’re going to stay in the press,’” Morris said. “And you just keep wearing on them. (Assistant) coach (Tim) Drake, talking to the team, said it’s kind of like that (football) team that’s just four yards and a cloud of dust. You’re just going to keep pounding it on them … and that’s what we kind of did there.”
The victory was due in large part to a strong second-half performance from Radaker. The junior scored 22 of his 28 points over the final two quarters, posting up better in the second half compared to the first while his teammates fed him the ball.
“He played great,” Morris said. “The first half, I don’t think he made himself quite as available. He didn’t do quite as good of a job posting up. I think he still posted. But in the second half, he really posted hard.”
Seventeen of Radaker’s points came in the third quarter as the Dragons rallied within a point of the lead (48-47) heading into the fourth quarter.
Jefferson then dominated the last three minutes of the game.
A 3-pointer from Kam Robinson with 2:52 left the contest gave Jefferson a 59-57 lead and ignited a 10-0 run which put the Dragons ahead 66-57 with 3:10 left.
“I think we went 10-0 there in the fourth quarter at one point,” Morris said. “That’s kind of the staple of what we’re trying to do is you just try to keep them running and you either wear them down or you make them play people they’re not comfortable playing … I give all our kids the credit. We played 10 or 11 I think tonight and our 11, they got after it. And that’s a good team. That’s a really good team. Defensively, that’s probably the best team we’ve played this year.”
Apalachee pulled within three points at one point, but the Dragons drained 9-of-10 free throws in the final minute, which included seven makes from Gaither to seal the win.
“It helps close out games when you make free throws,” Morris said. “It does really help, and we had the right people on the line and they did a good job.”
Jefferson hosts Franklin County Tuesday (7:30 p.m.) and travels to Morgan County Friday (8:30 p.m.) for a pair of region games. Morgan County reached the Class AAA Final Four last year.

The Jefferson girls’ basketball team probably wouldn’t have minded skipping halftime altogether Friday.
With the way the Dragons were rolling in the second quarter against Apalachee, there was no need to break.
Jefferson (7-0, 1-0) hit eight 3-pointers during the second period and outscored the visiting Wildcats 28-7 en route to a 44-12 halftime lead and a 65-40 win.
“Early, we were playing hard, we just weren’t making it pay off,” Dragon coach Greg Brown said. “We weren’t converting and finishing. We kind of settled in, I thought after that, and we got open shots.”
The team was on fire from beyond the arc with 11 3-pointers in the first half and 14 in the game. Six of those treys came from Courtney Kidd, who finished with 18 points. Livi Blackstock hit four 3-pointers and finished with 13 points.
“Our kids did a great job of finding them once they got hot,” Brown said. “We kept getting them the ball, which is what you want to do.”
Jefferson came out aggressively on defense on the first quarter, pressuring the Wildcats into mistakes and turnovers in jumping out to a 16-5 edge heading into the second quarter.
The Dragons held Apalachee scoreless for a 7:33 period that spanned parts of the first and second quarters, allowing Jefferson to build a 26-5 lead with 4:42 left before halftime.
“We were playing so hard and so good on defense and were getting them to turn it over,” Brown said. “We just weren’t converting. I was really proud of how hard we were playing on defense. Then, we kind of settled in and turned them over a little bit and were able to convert some easy baskets and get those wide-open threes. Those are fun to watch.”
Kidd knocked down five 3-pointers alone in the second quarter, her last coming with 15 seconds remaining ito give the Dragons a 44-12 lead. Jefferson held a 30-point lead after three quarters, which shortened the fourth quarter to just six minutes.
“When you get a lead like that, you just don’t want to get anybody hurt after that,” Brown said. “I thought we kind of let them come back a little bit there toward the end, but overall I’m really pleased. We’re healthy going into a big week next week. It was a good way to finish out this week.”
Jefferson, which has now reeled off seven straight wins to start the season, faces two region tests this week, hosting Franklin County, a 30-win, Final-Four team last year, on Tuesday (6 p.m.) and traveling to Morgan County on Friday (7 p.m.).
“We just want to keep getting a little better every day,” Brown said. “We know next week is a big week for us. We got Franklin coming in here Tuesday and we go to Morgan on Friday — two big region games that we need to get. We’ve talked about just taking it one game at a time and focusing on Franklin and trying to be ready for them on Tuesday.”

After some entertaining and competitive conference title games, the 2018 FBS playoffs have been announced.
Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame and Oklahoma made the final cut, leaving fans of Ohio State and Georgia disappointed. For Bulldog fans, seeing the SEC title slip from their grasp will hurt for some time, maybe almost as much as last year’s national title game loss to the Crimson Tide.
An argument can be made (and has been made by the powers-that-be) that the right four teams are in. This writer does have an issue with Notre Dame as the Fighting Irish seem to be the weakest of the four teams in, and to be honest I am not sure they could defeat Georgia or Ohio State. I think Central Florida would even give the Irish a battle.
Notre Dame does not play in a conference title game which, quite frankly, should disqualify the team from being in the playoffs. You cannot justify Georgia having to defeat Alabama (and nearly doing just that) to get in while Notre Dame does not play at all.
While the Irish are technically in the Atlantic Coast Conference when it comes to non-football sports, Notre Dame continues to be an independent for football. That’s fine, but if they want to do that then the Irish should not be considered for the playoffs. If that was the case then it would be interesting to see how long it took Notre Dame to begin playing in the ACC on the gridiron.
Alabama continues to be the king of the mountain and it will be difficult for any of the other three playoff teams to defeat Nick Saban’s team. For one, no one else has such a quality backup quarterback as the Tide and that came into play in the SEC title game.
A healthy Alabama may be tough to beat, though. The Tide took Georgia’s best punch and while it stumbled, Alabama did not go down. A rematch could certainly have gone the other way but it was not going to happen. With the Tide the No. 1 playoff seed, it meant UGA would have had to be No. 3 and the Bulldogs (or anyone for that matter) were not going to move up in the poll after a loss, even a close one like they had Saturday in Atlanta.
Clemson has a solid team and may be able to give Alabama a test in the national title game. The Tigers will all but certainly dispose of Notre Dame in the semifinals to give us another championship contest between Dabo and Nick.
Many of my friends and journalism colleagues are die-hard UGA fans and I know they are still hurting and steaming today. They should take some consolation, however, that the Bulldogs are inching closer to perhaps dethroning Alabama as the top player in the SEC. The last two matchups are proof of that. It very well could happen in 2019 as both are safe bets to make it back to Atlanta for another conference championship contest.
Personally, this writer still thinks the playoffs should be immediately expanded to eight teams. Quite frankly, a 16-team field would work better. There is no legitimate argument for it not happening. All other levels of college football have an expanded playoff system and have had for years.
It does work and has always worked despite what some try and convince us.
Once again, an undefeated Central Florida team has been snubbed from the playoffs and it really was no surprise. Under this current setup, the Knights will never have a chance to compete for a national title. In fact they were not even in the top six.
If the playoff field were 16 teams, however, Central Florida would get the chance to compete. It would add a great element to the playoffs, one that makes the NCAA basketball tournament so fun to watch. Hopefully this will happen down the road and sooner rather than later.

State update
Two schools from the state of Georgia are involved in the college football playoffs at their level and both earned wins this past weekend to advance.
Kennesaw State defeated Wofford in the I-AA (FCS) postseason and Valdosta State crushed Lenior-Rhyne in the Division II playoffs. Kennesaw State will host South Dakota State in the quarterfinals while VSU will host Notre Dame College (Ohio) in the third round.

Georgia Tech coaching search
The Yellow Jackets are in the process of hiring a new head coach for the first time in more than a decade after the retirement of Paul Johnson.
While Tech officials will almost certainly go in a different direction, some names which would do well in this position would be Army head coach Jeff Monken, Kennesaw State head coach Brian Bohannon and Navy offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper. All three coached under Johnson and all three have enjoyed great success in their current roles.
However, since all three run a version of the triple option most Tech fans would likely revolt, even though Johnson was very successful overall in his 11 seasons on the Flats.
A logical choice would be Tech alum Ken Whisenhunt, who has decades of NFL coaching experience (including time as a head coach).
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Winder resident Chris Bridges is a former sports editor for the Barrow News-Journal and a multi-time winner for sports column writing from the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Sports Writers Association. He welcomes feedback about this column at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.